Summer On Four Paws

Summer On Four Paws
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Awake, asleep, alike

Morning light squeezes through the blinds, spread fine across the ceiling

Her purring is the sunlight on my neck;
The brushing of her tail over my arm,
the aimless spring breeze

At my arm, the whispered promise
of warmth and life reborn
to a land where water's sharp as glass:

She is summer,
sleeping close by.

Je t'aime moi non plus

Je t'aime moi non plus
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is an HDR (high dynamic range) image generated by Photomatix, but not in the usual way. I didn't generate it by combining several images, but the red, green, and blue channels from this (originally colour) photo of merging onto the 401 taken last summer. I exported each channel to a separate JPG, and when prompted by Photomatix, I told it the EV spread was 2.5. I dropped the luminosity to -10, boosted the white cutoff and especially the black cutoff, and set smoothing and microcontrast to high. I like how it seems like something rather bright and exciting is going on just behind the trees at left... there's not much in the original image that would suggest this result. An interesting outcome.

Winter finds a bend in the Don

Winter finds a bend in the Don
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is one of those "deliberately bad" Kodak DC50 shots I've been promising. At its lowest quality setting, this eight-year-old early model digital produces images that look just a little like watercolour paintings. This particular shot is of a bend in the Don River just a little south of the big bridge that carries the Don Valley Parkway over it, in Ernest Thompson Seton Park, and was assembled from four images by AutoStitch.

Dream catcher

Dream catcher
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Emancipation Day...?

Yesterday night when I was out, waiting for the arrival of a friend, I was reading a free paper distributed in Toronto area pubs. In it, I read about Emancipation Day, which is celebrated in Windsor every August 1st (Windsor is the city in Ontario directly south of Detroit across the Detroit River -- yes, south of Detroit).

What's Emancipation Day? Well, in 1833, the British Parliament passed an act banning slavery. It took full effect at midnight of July 31, 1834. On August 1, 1834, slavery was banned throughout the British Empire, including British North America. At the same time, the legislature of Upper Canada (today the province of Ontario) passed a law making it illegal to return escaped slaves to the United States. For nearly two generations, until the US Civil War was sorted out, Canada became a haven for escaped slaves from the United States. Windsor, as the first Canadian place many of the slaves arrived at, has a special place in this history.

Ontario has a proud history in this respect... proud in the relative sense the word can be used where slavery is concerned, at any rate. Created in 1791 as a home for Loyalists (many of the black) fleeing the US after the Revolution, Upper Canada had for its first leader Lord Simcoe, who was an avowed abolishionist. While he could not ban slavery outright, he did persuade the new legistlature to undertake, as only the province's second act of legislation, to ban the importation of slaves into Upper Canada, and to legislate that any slave living in Upper Canada must be freed upon reaching age 25. While it didn't end slavery outright, it was effectively the death knell of the institution here, and it gave Ontario the distinction of being the first jurisdiction in the entire British Empire to officially move against slavery.

Certainly the course of African-Canadian history has not been entirely a smooth one. But I think it's important to remind the public of where we've come from, how far we've come and how proud we can be of living in a place that was so bold and important in the struggle to end slavery. Why should Emancipation Day be only recognized in Windsor? Shouldn't all of Ontario, maybe all of Canada, mark this day officially? What a wonderful thing to celebrate! The birth of freedom, the realization that human beings are human beings and due rights without regard to where they come from or what they look like... these are important things that should not be forgotten, but should be brought to mind every year. I think we as a people would be all the better for it. In Toronto, we celebrate Simcoe Day every August. Why not combine the two? A celebration of the end of slavery, and one of the first people in the Empire to move against it. Simcoe and emancipation! Something we can really be proud of.

New hearing for Steven Truscott

I just heard this morning that the Ontario Court of Appeals is going to begin hearings June 19th into the 1959 murder conviction of Steven Truscott. Truscott has been a cause celebre in Canada for generations. You'd be hard-pressed today to find people who believe him guilty of the rape and murder of Lynn Harper, for which he remains convicted. Despite the fact that he was paroled in 1969, he has maintained his innocence, and it looks like there's a chance the courts may finally overturn his conviction.

Steven Truscott was 14 when he was tried and convicted, and he was sentenced to hang. The public, without regard to his guilt or innocence at the time, revolted at the idea of a 14-year-old boying being hanged, and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. An ideal prisoner, Truscott was paroled in 1969. Under an assumed name, he married and raised three children in Guelph, Ontario, where he worked as a millwright for decades, his real identity a widely-known "secret" among the people around him. In 2000, after discussions with his family, he came out of anonymity. CBC's the fifth estate documented his case that year, and brought forward substantial (albeit circumstantial) evidence hinting strongly that the real culprit was an RCAF supply technician named Alexander Kalichuk, who died in the 1970s.

In 2004, retired Justice Frank Kaufman produced a report concluding there had been a miscarriage of justice in the Truscott case, prompting Ontario Justice Minister Irwin Cotler to ask the appeals court to reopen the matter. This hearing will be unusual for an appeals case in that new evidence is due to be admitted; in this case, from defence witnesses who were ignored during the trial in 1959, when they were children.

Here's hoping the justice system will finally make official the verdict Canadians have held in their hearts for two generations, by clearing the name of Steven Truscott.

A little anachronism

A little anachronism
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Today at lunch time I took off to a nearby park to shoot a bunch of photos at varying exposure levels, because I want to try out Photoshop's new HDR capacity. On my way back to the car, I spotted this little caterpillar, crawling with painful slowness over the snow. I just couldn't leave it there, and it seemed cruel to kill it when there were other options. So, I put it in my cap and brought it back to the office and dropped it off in the terrarium at work.

I suppose it was hopeless anthropomorphization on my part. The caterpillar probably doesn't have feelings, wasn't afraid, didn't feel relief in the warm car and couldn't possibly have been grateful; but who knows? And I have no idea what species it is; if it will find palatable food in the terrarium, if it will be a moth or a butterfly if it lives that long. But at least it has a chance now. I don't know if it makes any difference in the scheme of things. Probably not. Maybe it was really only an act of kindness with any real value to myself. It made me feel more human; empowered to do something merciful because I could, and chose to. I feel like a better person for having done this one small thing. Maybe that's all there really is.

Just beecuz

Just beecuz
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This shot's in the blog previously... it's in the posting about wandering down Westgate Blvd. But I reworked it this afternoon to crop it, desaturate the background, and round the edges of the frame. I think it's kind of neat. So here it is. :)

Sour Grapes?

Sour Grapes?
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I think this is a hoot. :) I was out having a beer with P-Doug and G Thursday night and I saw this poster, complete with the editing, in the washroom. These days I usually have my CX7330 with me for just such opportunities, so I snapped the picture.

Frankly, I think Don Cherry looked a lot better without the whispy Colonel Sanders beard... I've never liked it on him. He looks like a retired French general. But if he's gotta wear a goatee, well... this one makes him look younger... though rather more like a WWI-era Wehrmacht field marshall in full rant. :)

New Mongolian restaurant in Don Mills

I meant to blog about this place, but I just haven't had my blogging cap on lately. :)



I've been going to a Mongolian place called "The Great Khan" at the Pacific Mall (northeast corner of Kennedy and Steeles) for several years now, but this is the only other Mongolian grill place I've seen open in the GTA (that I know of, anyway). It's fantastic! I think it's a joint venture with the other place, because I recognized one of the staff, and he recognized me. :)





The staff could not have been more attentive and helpful. One of them noticed me trying to be demure about getting a shot and invited me up to photograph the place. The food was excellent; an even wider variety than the other Mongolian BBQ place. Dinner was $18.99, but it's all you can eat, and it includes the buffet. But the star of the show is the grill. If you've never done Mongolian: you fill a bowl with the meat, vegetables, tofu, noodles, spices, sauces, and oils you want. You then pass it to one of the grill chefs who skillfully flash-fries it while you watch, then artfully skates you meal into a clean bowl. It's a great treat just to prepare a bowl and watch it grilled. But eating it is wonderful. If you're in Toronto, and anywhere near Don Mills, seek out the Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill, on the west side of Don Mills Road just a little north of Eglinton Avenue.

Casa Loma forecourt

Casa Loma forecourt
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Here's irony for you. I took this shot today with a digital camera I've had for nearly eight years, and essentially retired five years ago. I don't think it's been on since 2001 or maybe even 2000. But I noticed some of its shots were poor, but kind of painterly. They've been getting praise for that -- formerly a deficiency -- on Flickr. So, I decided to resurrect it and see what I could do. I took this shot at Casa Loma, obviously. It's not as abstract as I'd hoped (turns out I need to use the lowest quality setting to get that effect), but strangely enough, it seems to have come out as a nice, compelling shot... from a digicam predating the megapixel age. Who would have imagined it. :)

Jetty at Pigeon Lake

Jetty at Pigeon Lake
Originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

The more I look at it, the more I like this picture. It's actually a parorama assembled from three others, taken in late September, 1999, on Pigeon Lake in the Kwarthas. I was on houseboat trip with my buddy P-Doug and his wife G. On the first night, she was struck with appendicitis... quite an evening... so P-Doug and I were left on a pretty short leash in the Trent-Severin Waterway, not being able to stray too far from the hospital. Still, we had a good time slowing wandering around, going to Bobcaygeon, freezing because the furnace wouldn't work... :) I took this shot on the last morning, when we were docked and preparing to leave.

Being Liberal means never having to say you're Tory

...Unless, of course, you're David Emerson. :)

I can't really find it in myself to get upset about Emerson crossing the floor per se. It happens, and Belinda Stronach did not quite a year ago. But I think the people of his riding are entirely justified in being mad as hell and crying for his blood. The election wasn't even a month ago, and he's crossed the floor. Those people just went out and elected a Liberal in a pretty closely fought election. No policies have been implimented yet, not a single budget has been tabled. The guy has no legitimate excuse at this point for what he did. It's not like he can stand before his constituents and say "I've looked at the record of the Harper government and I feel, as your MP, that I would serve you and Canada better supporting it." He's got no basis for doing that; at least Stronach had that much going for her. They're right to be upset.

Relatedly, I have to say... if I were one of these high-horse Western Conservatives who was peddling the idea that they were offering Canada fresh fish that didn't stink, I'd have to be a little embarrassed and angry today at Harper picking an unelected person for Cabinet and then cynically looking to slot him into the Senate -- as if even that were acceptable in this day and age. If the guy couldn't be bothered to run for a seat and be accountable to the public, then what the hell business has he in Cabinet? So all these folks who've been ballyhooing about a Triple-E Senate have just had the concept thrown back in their faces with a huge bellylaugh by one of their own in the most egregious of ways. Now imagine how Quebeckers feel, having given the Tories ten seats from which to choose cabinet members.

All I can say is, Harper must be a closet Liberal. Either that, or he only wants to be able to sit as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in future with "the Right Honourable" in front of his name.

Ahead to the Past

What was he thinking? Stephen Harper's cabinet includes a non-elected member, due to be parachuted into the Senate. Wait a sec... what was all that about Liberal arrogance, a culture of entitlement? Overlooked, somehow, was the fact that the Quebec, the province the non-elected Minister of Public Works Michael Fortier, gave Harper ten elected MPs from which to choose a minister. No, Harper has seen fit to pull a stunt that while strictly constitutional, would have made people in 19th century Canada squirm, nevermind 21st century Canadians. I can't imagine how he thought this would be a good idea or escape notice. He has a minority government unlikely to last two years -- does he really imagine the country will have forgotten this gross hypocritical appointment by then?